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in support of free expression
The information presented here by the National
Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) may be freely redistributed in its entirety,
provided that readers are informed that the information was obtained from
NCAC's World Wide Web site and that credit is given to the appropriate source
of whatever information is used. Permission is expressly granted for the information
obtained to be made available for file transfer from installations offering
unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet. Information found here
may not be sold for profit or incorporated in commercial documents without
the written permission from the National Coalition Against Censorship.
©Copyright 2005 NCAC
WEB DESIGN
Jeanne Criscola Criscola Design
free speech first amendment censorship
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A Selective Timeline of Censorship in the U.S.A.
1997
Worried about trademark infringement, San Francisco State University president Robert Corrigan orders the removal of a series of posters by SFSU student Andy Cox lampooning Citibank?s ?In Your Dreams? billboard campaign.
Africancan-American artist, Betye Saar, initiates a letter-writing campaign protesting Kara Walker?s paper cutouts, Presenting Negro Scenes Drawn Upon My Passage through the South and Reconfigured for the Benefit of Enlightened Audiences Wherever Such May be Found, by Myself, Missus K.E.B. Walker, Colored, 1997. Tensions are finally aired at a symposium at Harvard addressing the sensitive issue of the recycling and reframing of racially stereotypical images in contemporary culture. Four nude sculptures by Auguste Rodin, including The Kiss, are pulled from a traveling exhibit shown at Brigham Young University in Utah. The San Antonio City Council eliminates all city funding to the Esperanza center, a community arts organization, following a campaign that characterized Esperanza as ?pro-homosexual,? ?pro-abortion? and anti-?family values.? In May 2001, Judge Orlando Garcia rules that the City of San Antonio had violated the First Amendment rights of the Esperanza Center. He finds that Esperanza was penalized for expressing its viewpoint, namely the promotion of social and economic justice-through its arts program. The Anchorage, AL Assembly strips the Out North Contemporary Art House of municipal funds for failing to produce only art that is ?strictly mainstream...that you would take your whole family to.?
Bookstores, particularly Barnes & Noble and Borders, receive protests against Jock Sturges? books with photos of nude minors. In at least 20 locations protestors enter the stores and vandalize copies of the books. Barnes & Noble is indicted in Alabama and Tennessee on ?harmful to minors? charges for selling books by Sturges and photographer David Hamilton. Videos of the Academy Award-winning film, The Tin Drum, are seized by Oklahoma City police under pressure from Oklahomans for Children and Families (OCAF). Police claim the film violates the state?s child pornography law. Planet Comics and Science Fiction Store in Oklahoma City closes after two years of harassment resulting from charges against the owners for trafficking, selling and displaying ?obscene? comic books. The police raid on the store and subsequent eviction by the landlord, on the complaint of a member of the Christian Coalition in conjunction with OCAF, result in plummeting sales when customers could not find its new location.
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